AI made 16 brand-new viruses

In a study published this week, scientists used an AI program called Evo to design several novel viruses not found in nature. The breakthrough use of AI raises obvious red flags about how the tech could be weaponized, but it could also save lives, researchers said.

How does it work? If your understanding of biology stops at mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell, just know that Evo was trained on over 9 trillion nucleotides—the building blocks of DNA and RNA—in an attempt to notice patterns that humans have yet to recognize:

• After gobbling up nature’s beautiful code, the program spat out about 700,000 potential genome combinations.
• Scientists at Stanford University and the Arc Institute tested 285 of those recipes they deemed viable, and 16 of them grew real-life viruses that have never been produced before.

Not all viruses are bad. The rhino, corona, and noro varieties aren’t great, but doctors use engineered viruses to fight drug-resistant bacteria and genetic diseases. Researchers have long manufactured viruses to better understand how they work, and AI could potentially make that work easier.

But…there are fears that a bad actor—or a scientist without adequate guardrails—could use the tech to design a bioweapon. The researchers also warned that this kind of study shouldn’t be used on risky pathogens that can cause infections in humans, like malaria.—MM